The Handmaid's Tale - Context
1985
Religion
Atwood's life
Puritanism - English protestant who believed the church needed to undergo more reform - associated with moral codes, plain clothing, and above all a form of worship they considered purer than Roman catholicism
Atwood lived through the Cold War
Political influences
1973 - Roe vs Wade ruling
--> links to mass media portrayal of abortion
Feminist influences
Jezebel - murderer, prostitute and enemy of God
Representation of Angels:
- Obedient to a fault, never questioning God
They: - Crush non-believers in a wine press
- pour out bowls of plague and death on the people of Earth
Guardian Angels - a non-profit organisation of unarmed crime preventing vigilantes who patrol the streets as well as providing education programmes and workshops for schools
1960s and 70s - women went on strikes for equality e.g. the New York Abortion Speakout which helped support Roe vs Wade passing
Ecriture feminine - French literary theory that refers to the articulation of female sexuality in writing and speaking, which can eventually bring a shift in the language system
Traditional Christian teachings were centred on women needing to suffer as punishment for original sin
Societal influences
During 60s and 70s - rapid increase in awareness on environmental issues
- US gov banned DDT in 1972
Literary influences
Rene Descartes - French philosopher 'I think therefore I am' --> His philosophy was built on the idea of radical doubt in which nothing that is perceived or sensed is necessarily true
First case of HIV/AIDS in the US was 1980 - homophobic moral panic grew in the media with public fears feeding into Christian right propaganda that was against sex outside of marriage
Ronald Reagan was president of the US at the time, emphasised conservatism and his belief in traditional family value
- appealed to religious groups like the Moral Majority
Moral Majority - founded 1979 by members of the Christian right and the Republican Party
- pushed back against the progress made by the civil rights movement and second wave feminism
(Gilead can be seen as speculation as to life with the Moral Majority in charge)
Mid 20th century: second wave feminism: advocacy for women's rights in the workplace, in marriage and in society
1984 - Atwood was living in West Berlin [US controlled west, Soviet Union, east]
Influence of the Cold war
[1949 - 1991] No big physical combat, instead varied attempts from both sides to assert global political dominance
Grew up with the threat of nuclear war - mutually assured destruction
Atwood's puritan ancestor Mary Webster was tried as a witch but survived her execution
Postmodernism - a genre which engages with fragmentation, meta-narratives and unreliable narrators. The historical notes reinforce the fictional nature of fiction - Offred's story has been transcribed and is now existing as part of a lecture series
Phyllis Schlafly - American conservative who campaigned against the ERA and believed women couldn't be raped in marriage. Atwood parodies activists like her for publicly campaigning for conservative values who are then punished by the system they help to create
The Canterbury Tales - (what THT's name alludes to) - an example of masculine dominated literary canon
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) - proposed amendment to the US constitution which would have guaranteed equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. First introduced in 1923 but by 1982 it had failed to pass due to strong opposition
Laura Mulvey’s 1975 work on the male gaze - a tendency for women in visual media to be presented by men as ‘passive’ sexual objects for the pleasure of the ‘active’ heterosexual male gaze
Rachel and Leah - Jacob had children with both Rachel and Leah and their handmaid's Billah and Zilpah
Hitler and the Nazi Party
Book burnings akin to control over literature and literacy in Gilead
In Hitler's ‘Third Reich' people were encouraged to betray any perceived lapses in others, even close family members
In order to brainwash his countrymen into accepting the genocide of Jews and gypsies, Hitler described these groups as ‘Untermenschen' - less than human - links to 'unwomen'
Children of ‘undesirables' in Hitler's Germany were forcibly removed from their parents, to be adopted by loyal Nazis